Here’s a fascinating observation:
The biggest cultural predictor that you will be trusting, trustworthy, generous, fair, and so on is the extent to which you come from a market-oriented society. People from traditional societies, from tribal societies, from non- or pre-market societies, and from socialist societies are not nice.
Collectivist societies operate on the notion that members of those societies put the collective good ahead of their own selfish interests. Why, if that’s the case, are black markets so strong in them? Why, if that’s the case, that the most productive segments of those economies are the “gray” areas where people are allowed a small section of farm, for example, to cultivate as they wish and sell as they wish? Why, if that’s the case, are places like Wenzhou in China flourishing?
Collectivism flies in the face of fundamental biological programming, and no amount of inculcation will alter that. We all know this. What’s a very interesting premise, here, is that capitalism produces people who are nicer to their fellows than even an inculcating socialist society does.
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